Les Ephemeres

As the title, “The Ephemerals,” implies, scenes played by actors from recollections of their own experiences pass like vignettes set in changing times. On a runway between two galleries where spectators become like mirroring Daumier sketches, roll out petits mondes ("little worlds") from one to three at a time. Actors, crouching, propel and constantly turn the rectangular or circular mini-sets on wheels. Episodes from daily life thus take place in perpetual motion, despite the pauses chariots ("rolling carts") make in their passing from silk-curtained, interchangeable side entrances/exits. Each platform is furnished with props in almost excruciating detail (e.g. beloved toys and games in their original boxes; little vases and ceramic cows, other Monoprix miniatures), all fascinating at first.

The problem is that there's too much of every good thing, from laborious cooking of pasta to a three-phase selling of a house by a daughter after her mother's death, from a mother of a bride dressing and having her hair done before the wedding to medics' attempts to revive a dying girl.

Some mysteries remain. An incredibly ugly woman seeks treatment -- but for what? Is she deranged? Is there meaning in her tirades? What little there is of text is banal. Furnishings, like furniture, overwhelm people.

Movement is relentlessly substituted for plot, characterization, ideas. Ironically, what is so personal seems exactly the opposite.

So, I hate thinking this, but Les Ephemeres may be the tedious, uneven result of overindulging actors, over-valuing improvisation, overuse of theatrical devices.

There are two 3-1/2 hour parts of 15 episodes each. After the first hour of the first half, there's too much repetition, too little meaning. Though the performers are first rate, and the range of some—like the ultimate mother-and-daughter figures assayed by Juliana Corneico da Hunha and Delphine Cottu—is outstanding, one is always aware they are acting. I would not have thought it possible, but the original music and unique performing of it by Jean-Jacque Lemetre (perched above one of the entrance-exits, his great gray head like Michaelangelo's Moses) become boring.

If one attends in the same day the two-part version of Les Ephemeres, the episodes most looked forward to are the servings of water and petite beurre cookies midway during each "act." And the 1-1/2 hours off for supper are absolute bliss—not only due to the Soleil's modestly priced, locally cooked meals, famous soups and yogurt-based desserts. Such fortification also helps one to stick out the closing batch of scenes.

Though each part can stand on its own, the second "finishes" several actions set up earlier. For example, a father retrieves his young daughter from the apartment of a transvestite who'd been shown becoming her after-school "friend." A crucifix given to a girl of part Jewish ancestry helps save her as a woman during the Nazi occupation. Such scenes show the wisdom of having drama with a beginning, middle, and end, as Aristotle advised.

The Theatre du Soleil doesn't improve on that in its latest venture, also failing to take political and social stances. I hope it gets back to those.

[Note: the critic returned in April 2008 and filed this revision:] Update: changes have been made, notably as a result of growth during the Avignon Festival appearance and subsequent tour of Australia. But ephemera is still ephemera, and the production is still best watched for the acting and use of realistic, detailed props.